Summer holidays are officially on – but can you actually switch off? Modern technology has become so intrinsic to our everyday operations that the rules of engagement when on holiday have become blurred along the way. In fact, a study by TUI revealed that more than 90% of UK business owners work while on holiday!
Three questions come to mind here:
- Are we over-reliant on our technology?
- Is it more stressful to switch off on holiday than it is to stay plugged in?
- Is there a better balance to be struck here?
We better put our piña colada down for this one…
Remember the good old days?
There once was a time, in a galaxy far far away, when ‘out-of-office’ meant exactly that. Checking your emails on the beach was a foreign concept and attending meetings in your complimentary slippers wasn’t an option. Don’t get us wrong, waving goodbye to the work desk for a week or two was always daunting. But that’s how it was for everyone.
Nowadays, taking a mid-year break is far from the norm. It’s perhaps for this reason that for more and more business owners, the Christmas break has become a whole month long. Is this extended winter break the product of exhaustion because we couldn’t properly switch off earlier in the year? It seems like we could learn a lot from our pre-tech selves…
Catch 22 claxon
Yes, we’re in the Mac-leasing business, and no, we’re not teeing up a rogue anti-tech narrative.
Computing developments and inventions have opened way more doors than they’ve shut over the past 20 years. Evolving technology has broken the glass ceiling when it comes to new opportunities and problem solving for businesses. All we’re questioning is, have we lost the ability to leave it behind and can we better manage our reliance on it to make more use of our downtime?
We appreciate this is a tricky one for business owners. On the one hand, you’ve worked hard to build and develop your own business which should give you the freedom and flexibility to get a bit of R&R when you need it. On the other, the brain of a business owner is stereotypically always on, constantly plotting next moves, and forever craving control. While we’re all different, there is an argument that business owners are actually less stressed on holiday today because that connection to their business can be maintained.
Finding the balance
We’re not naive and understand that a complete switch-off to work might be unreasonable (not to mention undesirable). But from personal experience, we know how easily one message reply can turn into a 3-hour BAU rabbit hole – eating well into your sunlounger time limit! So, here’s our attempt to help you strike a balance…
- Adopt a light-touch approach and be strict: Set time slots for checking in, turn off automatic alerts, and instruct any urgent team/client queries to come through on a dedicated messaging channel to avoid the constant ‘ping’.
- Delegate well: Map out exactly who’s doing what with contingency plans in place for any predictable changes. Set clear expectations to any team members before you go away about what to contact/not contact you about.
- Keep your tech at arm’s length: Just because you can take your laptop to the pool, it doesn’t mean you should. Respect your own boundaries, stick to your self-administered time slots, and give your brain the downtime it needs.
- Use a virtual private network: If you really need to log on in the beach bar, do your business a favour and use a VPN. Public Wi-Fi connections are a hotbed for eavesdroppers and hackers, but a VPN will encrypt your internet traffic to create a secure tunnel that protects your data.
Lease your way to more holidays
Whether you’ve decided to go phone-free for a full two weeks, or still want to stay connected to your team back home, one thing is for sure – expensive tech can easily cut into your Marbella 2026 budget.
When you choose one of Lease Loop’s flexible leasing solutions, you can realise the transformative benefits of Apple devices without the hefty down payment. Not to mention, all our Macs come with AppleCare, giving you worldwide cover – so if you do need to log on poolside, do it knowing you can access support when you need it.
Get in touch to learn more, we’d love to hear about you and your business.